News – Carmen Lundy

Carmen Lundy is named 2026 NEA Jazz Master

Nate Jones — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 02:47:07 +0000

Washington, DC—The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters Fellowship is the highest award bestowed by our nation on jazz musicians and advocates. On November 21, 2025, the NEA announced the newest recipients of this honor: Carmen Lundy, Airto Moreira, Patrice Rushen, and A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy recipient Rhonda Hamilton.

NEA Senior Advisor Mary Anne Carter said, “As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, the NEA is proud to also honor these individuals who have played a significant role in jazz, considered one of our country’s greatest cultural gifts to the world. As with our nation, jazz is an art form with a rich heritage that continues to evolve, thanks to those who have dedicated their lives and creativity to this music over generations.”

Jazz broadcaster Rhonda Hamilton, recipient of the 2026 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy, played a key role in the early days of jazz radio station WBGO-FM and has served as a trusted guide for generations of jazz listeners, including in her current role as host of a weekday radio show on KKJZ-FM in Los Angeles.
Vocalist, composer, and arranger Carmen Lundy’s multifaceted artistry has significantly influenced modern jazz over a career spanning more than five decades and including more than 150 published songs.
Drummer, percussionist, composer, and educator Airto Moreira is a defining voice in jazz percussion, with skills on instruments ranging from the tambourine to the bongos.
Pianist, composer, musical director, and educator Patrice Rushen has led a pioneering career that bridges jazz, R&B, classical, and pop genres. Her distinctive sound blends melodic sophistication and instrumental prowess.

In response to receiving this honor, Carmen stated: “I would like to thank the NEA for this meaningful recognition. My life’s work is a sum of many parts. Throughout my 50 plus years as a jazz musician I have been shown the world through this music and feel proud to be an American ambassador to this original art form. I’m truly grateful to be standing on the shoulders of the teachers, the ancestors, the veteran musicians and singers who have come before me and helped shape the beautiful, rich sounds and stories revealing the infinite possibilities and power in the art of creating great jazz music.”

Visit arts.gov for more information about the 2026 NEA Jazz Masters. High-resolution photos of the 2026 NEA Jazz Masters are available for media use.

The NEA will honor the 2026 Jazz Masters at a free concert on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and streamed online. More information, including how to reserve tickets, will be available in early 2026.

About the NEA Jazz Masters

Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded 181 fellowships to great figures in jazz, such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Kenny Barron, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dave Brubeck, Regina Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Bobby McFerrin, Dan Morgenstern, Maria Schneider, Wayne Shorter, Henry Threadgill, and Chucho Valdés.

The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships are awarded to living individuals on the basis of nominations from the public including members of the jazz community. NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships are $25,000 and can be received once in a lifetime.

Explore the NEA’s website for photos and bios of all of the NEA Jazz Masters, as well as archived concerts, video tributes, podcasts, and more than 350 NEA Jazz Moments audio clips. The National Endowment for the Arts has also supported the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, an effort to document the lives and careers of nearly 100 NEA Jazz Masters.

[original source]

Carmen Lundy is Named Recipient of the 2025 Jazz Legacies Fellowship

Nate Jones — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 03:04:25 +0000

JazzTimes once proclaimed that “musicians as diversely gifted as Carmen Lundy, who has excelled as a vocalist, composer, lyricist, arranger and pianist for more than three decades, remain far and few between.” Having composed and published more than 150 original songs, with 16 albums as a bandleader, she has not only been a consummate interpreter of the jazz repertoire; she has contributed significantly to expanding it.

Twice nominated for a Grammy for Modern Ancestors and Fade To Black, Lundy is also the recipient of the RoundGlass Music Award, as well as the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz by Black Women in Jazz and the Arts. She was awarded the inaugural Centennial Medal of Honor in 2023 from the University of Miami as a distinguished alumna; among her other awards and recognitions, especially rewarding was Miami-Dade’s County Office of the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners proclaiming January 25th “Carmen Lundy Day,” along with handing Ms. Lundy the keys to the City of Miami.

Throughout her journey, Lundy has kept her focus on how she can expand her beloved art form. “Some of the greatest contributors to the music that we call jazz are no longer with us, so what do we do?” she has said. “We can ‘boo-hoo’ or we can pick up the torch and the mantle and keep pressing.”

Learn more about her legacy.

Congratulations, Carmen, for receiving the Jazz Legacies Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation . We are proud to honor and celebrate the groundbreaking musicians who have shaped the very nature of jazz.

Coming Up – Carmen Lundy at We Out Here Festival

David — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 12:18:28 +0000

Carmen will be performing on August 13 at 3:40pm at the We Out Here festival in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, UK.

Event Information

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Carmen featured in Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival Review

David — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:34:51 +0000

Excerpted from Inaugural Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival Dazzles L.A. Music Revelers
By A. Scott Galloway – Photos: Matthew Imaging
June 30, 2022

Earlier, singer/songwriter Carmen Lundy made her debut as a leader at The Hollywood Bowl (she’d sung at ‘Playboy’ a few years back as a guest of Terri Lyne Carrington’s “Mosaic Project”). Carmen brought the finest Jazz vocal set of the day, pulling from her 15-album catalog plus three new songs from her October-slated CD, Fade to Black. Of those three selections, the women’s rights meditation “Ain’t I Human” was an attention grabber given the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade just two days prior. Backstage at the Bowl, Lundy shared, “When the pandemic began, I said I wasn’t going to write anything. Then stuff started happening, one thing after the other. I was surprised I was writing about stuff BEFORE it manifested. I wrote ‘Ain’t I Human’ about a year ago inspired by Harriet Tubman’s ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ speech concerning women’s right to vote. I figured when this audience hears what I’m singing, maybe they’ll think I wrote it yesterday for this festival. But I didn’t. Jazz vocals tend to reflect another time. A lot of the repertoire we sing was mostly written by white men of the past. I want to sing about the present that has to do with the future. 16 albums later, it may have taken me longer than one might expect, but I’m very happy with the transition of artist perspective that has happened for me across the years.”

Nothing But The Blood wins “Best Music Documentary” at DTLA Film Festival 2022

David — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 19:07:34 +0000

Carmen Lundy’s new documentary about the Apostolic Singers of Miami features amazing and uplifting footage of Carmen’s family, gathered to record for one and only time in 1991. The Downtown LA Film Festival has awarded the film Best Music Documentary for 2022.

Carmen wrote, directed, filmed and edited the documentary during the pandemic, as a tribute to lost family and the Apostolic Singers of Miami.

Hyundai Ad Features Carmen Lundy

David — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 18:54:04 +0000

In the last frame of this fun ad from Hyundai, a marquee shows a sold out show featuring Carmen Lundy:

Watch the full ad here

Carmen on The Wave with Pat Prescott

David — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 19:06:56 +0000

“Grammy nominated singer, songwriter and pianist Carmen Lundy is one of the highlights in a loaded lineup for the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival which is coming up on June 25th and 26th at the Bowl. It was formerly known as the Playboy Jazz Festival but the only thing that has changed is the name. It’s an LA tradition like none other and those of us who have gone in the past can’t wait to get back.”

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The New Yorker: Goings On About Town

David — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 02:01:20 +0000

Although Carmen Lundy was right on the cusp of the jazz-vocal renaissance of the early nineties, fame somehow eluded the versatile singer. A model of persistence, Lundy has soldiered on with ever greater self-possesion; her recordings, including the recent "Modern Ancestors," resound with musical assurance–she composes much of her material–and outspoken political fervor.

- Steve Futterman, The New Yorker

JazzIz: Modern Ancestors Review

David — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 01:15:40 +0000

Carmen Lundy featured on JAZZIZ Backstage Pass: 10 Albums You Need To Know for October 2019

JAZZIZ Backstage Pass